Love and Loss Dance Hand in Hand
by thomps
Summary: Five times Sirius loved and lost and how it changed him.


The first time, Sirius is six. It can hardly be called love, but he believes it to be so, the foolish young boy who believes he knows everything. It is more of an attraction, he wants to learn more about her, and she interests him. She is very pretty with dark black hair and dark brown eyes. Sirius takes to watching her from a tree in his backyard. He decides he no longer "loves" her when he sees her watch a injured bird for several minutes before squishing its head with the bottom of her shoe and walk away muttering about horrible, little birds. She sits in Azkaban, in the cell across from him, baring her teeth and muttering about horrible, little children.

The second time, Sirius is twelve. It is the love that you get from twelve year olds, childish, sweet and hollow. She has long brown hair and she is decidedly odd. She looks everywhere but at you when you speak to her. She speaks to inanimate objects sometimes, just because she has something to say and needs to say it. She is more than a little mad but Sirius supposes he likes that. He is more than a little mad himself; it comes with being a Black. He stops liking her when he overhears her talking to a wall about how much she dislikes James Potter. He no longer thinks her mad, but insane.

The third time, Sirius is fifteen. It is the closest to love he has experienced to a girl so far in his life. It is summer holidays and she is a Muggle. She has bright blue hair and a tongue piercing she likes to tap against her teeth. She excites him, she is a lot like him; unafraid to push the boundaries and cause a bit of trouble. She breaks it off on a Tuesday, never giving a reason why. Afterwards Bella asks Sirius who the pretty little Muggle was who she saw him hanging around; he should know that Muggles are dirty little creatures, she tells him. Two days later Sirius packs his bags and sets off for the Potter's house.

The fourth time, Sirius is twenty-one. She is funny, happy and slightly eccentric, and he really does love her. One night he gets drunk and shouts at her; she shouts back and leaves. He wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a horrible feeling in his stomach. He knows he will have to apologize today. He gets up and looks at the Prophet that has been delivered to his house. Her face looks at him from the front page. _Witch murdered late last night by Death Eaters_. He can't bear to read the article so he just stares and stares at her smiling face looking up at him from the paper and realizes that he is way over his head. He has a dead girlfriend, a friend who is shunned from the community and two friends who are in hiding. Remus finds him late that night, smashed bottles around him, lying next to the paper and whispering _sorry._

The fifth time starts when he is eleven — though, one part of it starts when he is eighteen. They are his brothers and she is his sister. Their smiles and laughter could light the darkest room and they made his life worth living. When he loses all of them in one week, he goes mad. They are his last love, for a broken heart can no longer work and he is scared of losing yet more people because of his own actions.

Sirius dies laughing at Bellatrix's angry face, and at the thought that if she wins, he will get to see his friends again, and if he wins Bellatrix is captured. It's win/win situation and it's enough to make any man happy.

_Love and loss dance hand in hand,_

_atop the dead man's grave._

_Though now an object of loss,_

_he once had been love's slave._

_Light and love cannot reach_

_what is buried underneath._

_Smiles and laughter and happier days_

_seem so very, very far away_

_in the stony, sad silence that surrounds_

_the place of the dead man's grave._

_People, they will come and they will go,_

_but the dance of love and loss will not slow._

_Love and loss cannot reach_

_that which is buried under the ground._

_So instead they dance, hand in hand,_

_on the dead man's grave, with leaps and bounds._


End file.
